Rory Feek on Missing Joey: ‘I Sleep on Her Side of the Bed Now’

It has been a month since Joey Feek of Joey + Rory passed away, and in a new blog post titled "Forrest and Jenny," Rory Feek shares life updates and his love for the film Forrest Gump.

"A lot of people ask me how I’m doing. I usually try to smile and say, “I’m doing okay”. And I am … okay," Rory writes at This Life I Live.

The singer admits it's been a flood of emotions following his wife's death, but he says he and his 2-year-old daughter, Indiana, are getting by:

I feel so many emotions all at the same time. Blessed. Lost. Proud. Scared. Encouraged. Tired. Thankful. I have a lot of good people around me and they pour love all over Indy and I. It’s hard to be in this old house without Joey, but I know she wants us here. And I know it’s where we need to be. I moved our bed to a different part of the room, against a different wall… because I needed it to be different. I sleep on her side of the bed now. I can’t sleep on mine. And when people come to dinner and they sit in Joey’s chair, I want to tell them not to sit there, but I don’t. But I want to.

I miss my wife… I miss my best friend. I miss her voice and her laugh and her eyes and her smile. It’s still hard for me to imagine that she’s not here, and she’s not ever coming back. But I know that time will make it easier. Because that’s what time does. It heals what is broken. There will still be scars, but I know there will come a day when I won’t miss her this much, when I won’t wonder where she is… and what she is doing right now in heaven.

Rory explains that the Tom Hanks film Forrest Gump has had an impact on him over the years, as he relates specifically to the main character, Forrest, even lovingly referring to Joey as his 'Jenny.' Forrest showed him how to "keep a sense of innocence and light in a world that just grows darker and more cynical every day."

"He seemed to only see the good in people … especially in Jenny," Rory writes. Though I saw Forrest Gump in a movie theater in Texas eight years before I ever met Joey … I wanted to love someone like that. And so God sent me my own Jenny. And we got married and it was beautiful, just like the movie."

Both in the film and in Rory's life, the leading women got sick and died, and both Forrest and Rory have had to deal with that loss and continue on with their lives. "But I believe that Forrest was okay. And though his love for Jenny never faded, the pain of losing her lessoned," he concludes. "I miss you Joey. You would be so proud of our little Indiana."